The Rise of the Global Imaginary

Political Ideologies from the French Revolution to the Global War on Terror

Manfred B. Steger

Combining political history, philosophical interpretation, and good old-fashioned story-telling, Manfred B. Steger traces ideology's remarkable journey from Count Destutt de Tracy's Enlightenment "science of ideas" to President George W. Bush's "imperial globalism." Rejecting futile attempts to "update" modern political belief systems by adorning them with prefixes, the author offers instead a highly original explanation for their novelty--their increasing ability to articulate deep-seated understandings of community in global rather than national terms. This growing awareness of globality fuels the visions of social elites who reside in the privileged spaces of our global cities. It erupts in the hopes and demands of migrants who traverse national boundaries in
search of their piece of the global promise. Stoked by cross-cultural encounters, technological change, and scientific innovation, the rising global imaginary has destabilized the grand political ideologies codified during the national age.

The Rise of the Global Imaginary

Political Ideologies from the French Revolution to the Global War on Terror

Manfred B. Steger

Description

Combining political history, philosophical interpretation, and good old-fashioned story-telling, Manfred B. Steger traces ideology's remarkable journey from Count Destutt de Tracy's Enlightenment "science of ideas" to President George W. Bush's "imperial globalism." Rejecting futile attempts to "update" modern political belief systems by adorning them with prefixes, the author offers instead a highly original explanation for their novelty--their increasing ability to articulate deep-seated understandings of community in global rather than national terms. This growing awareness of globality fuels the visions of social elites who reside in the privileged spaces of our global cities. It erupts in the hopes and demands of migrants who traverse national boundaries in
search of their piece of the global promise. Stoked by cross-cultural encounters, technological change, and scientific innovation, the rising global imaginary has destabilized the grand political ideologies codified during the national age.

The Rise of the Global Imaginary

Political Ideologies from the French Revolution to the Global War on Terror

Manfred B. Steger

Table of Contents

Preface and AcknowledgmentsIntroduction: Political Ideologies and Social ImaginariesPart I: The National Imaginary 1. Ideology and Revolution: From Superscience to False Consciousness2. The Grand Ideologies of the Nineteenth Century: British Liberalism, French Conservatism, German Socialism3. Twentieth-Century Totalitarianisms: Russian Communism and German NazismPart II: The Global Imaginary 4. Third World Liberationisms and other Cold War Isms: No End to Ideology5. Market Globalism and Justice Globalism in the Roaring Nineties6. Jihadist Globalism versus Imperial Globalism: The Great Ideological Struggle of the Twenty-First Century?NotesSelected BibliographyIndex